7 Surprisingly Smart Things Gwyneth Paltrow Has Said About Her Health

Sunday

May 19, 2013 at 12:01 AMMay 19, 2013 at 6:23 PM

Gwyneth is often mocked for her health advice—but some of it is quite good

We love to hate Gwyneth Paltrow, the statuesque actress who recently topped Star magazine’s list of the 20 Most Hated Celebrities—especially when she says outrageous things about her diet and other health topics. (Like her recent admission that she smokes one cigarette a week, despite positioning herself as a wellness guru!) But give the girl a break—not all of her health advice is that bad. We rounded up a few highlights, both from recent interviews and her new cookbook, It’s All Good: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great.
Sharing her favorite kid-friendly meal, “Rice Cream Sundaes,” in It’s All Good: “Make a big batch of brown rice (or buckwheat soba noodles), then lay out lots of little bowls of whatever your kids like. I use diced avocado, steamed peas, broccoli sautéed with garlic and tofu, savory broiled tofu, shredded carrot … you get the idea. Kids have fun picking what they want to put on their grains from the ‘sundae’ bar.”
On the silver lining of losing her father to throat cancer, in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar: "All I've learned about nutrition and health came from his cancer. I'll probably have a long and healthy life because he didn't."
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Getting real about gluten-free pasta, in It’s All Good: “Brown rice pasta has many detractors, and for good reason. It doesn’t stand up that well to sauces and doesn’t have the same great chew as regular pasta. But when you’re avoiding gluten but are dying for a bowl of pasta, it can do the trick, especially when you give it a lighter sauce, bursting with rich flavor.”
The truth about the uber-restrictive diet that she describes in her new cookbook, to SELF: “I probably eat this way two or three times a year for three weeks at a time. Past that, I'm not willing to make the sacrifice. Life is about balance. It's good to work in healthy food, whether it's five days a week or five meals a week. And if you're going to do it, it should be awesome food you're psyched to make.“
On her fit friends’ favorite snack, in It’s All Good: “A superfood for sure, sweet potatoes are beloved by many of my very fit friends, who snack on them all the time. A roasted sweet potato is a beautiful thing on its own with just a pinch of salt, but you can shake up your routine by mashing your roasted sweet potato with Chinese five spice powder.”
Helping combat the stigma of postpartum depression, in an interview with Good Housekeeping: "I thought postpartum depression meant you were sobbing every single day and incapable of looking after a child. But there are different shades of it and depths of it, which is why I think it's so important for women to talk about. It was a trying time. I felt like a failure.”
On the cover photo of her new cookbook, in an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail: “I look a mess, no make-up and my naturally frizzy hair un-brushed. But it was taken while we were cooking for real and I thought, ‘this is me, this is how I am.’ I think it says something about how I have learnt to accept myself.”
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